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Hi everyone! I'm new on these forums, although I've been reading for a while I've never posted. Reading here only made me more enthusiastic about building my own system, after having experimented with IKEA's hydroponics system for a while.

What I would like to do, to take hobbying to the next level, is build an NFT system in our office, to grow green plants for decorative purposes. I was thinking about using 4 (4") PVC pipes of about 6 feet long, 4 pipes in total. I also saw some really cool bamboo poles of the same diameter, which would look even nicer.

Since a lot of people use these types of systems to grow crops, I was wondering if anyone has experience with the type of application I'm interested in, or has some tips about in what ways this kind of system would differ from a system to grow crops.

Maybe some of this depends on the particular plant I'd like to grow. I have not decided on that yet, and I'm open to suggestions. I was thinking of something like peace lilies maybe, but anything lush and green will do.

I currently have Devil's Ivy, a couple of varieties of Syngonium, and a Spathiphyllum Peace Lily, planted in the grow bed in my IBC display system, and they are loving it.

I don't know if you can see the Peace Lily in the second pic, the Devil's Ivy is growing through and over it. It's not responding to the aquaponic system as well as the others, which I find interesting, as it grows really well in streams and storm water drains around the city here.

I would be hesitant to grow the Syngonium and Devil's Ivy in NFT channels. I recently dug some of both out of my gravel grow bed after they'd only been in for around 4 or 5 weeks and they had already developed a large root system with a number of big thick roots on each plant. I can't comment on the Spathiphyllum's root system, as I haven't dug any of it out of the GB at this point..

I currently have Devil's Ivy, a couple of varieties of Syngonium, and a Spathiphyllum Peace Lily, planted in the grow bed in my IBC display system, and they are loving it.

I don't know if you can see the Peace Lily in the second pic, the Devil's Ivy is growing through and over it. It's not responding to the aquaponic system as well as the others, which I find interesting, as it grows really well in streams and storm water drains around the city here.

I would be hesitant to grow the Syngonium and Devil's Ivy in NFT channels. I recently dug some of both out of my gravel grow bed after they'd only been in for around 4 or 5 weeks and they had already developed a large root system with a number of big thick roots on each plant. I can't comment on the Spathiphyllum's root system, as I haven't dug any of it out of the GB at this point.

Click to expand...

Those are looking really good! Interesting that your peace lily is not doing as well as the other plants. And good tip about growing those in NFT channels (or rather not growing them in NFT channels), I guess I also don't know that much about plants yet. So I'm looking for a plant that doesn't grow a huge root system whilst still (because that's the goal) having quite some foliage. Maybe that's difficult, but it's something nice to go and do some research on.